


A Snack

by piggybackride (mssileas)



Series: Hayseed and Farmer [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Farmer!AU, Hayseed Junkrat | Jamison Fawkes, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 15:06:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18075704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssileas/pseuds/piggybackride
Summary: “She tried to eat me!” Hayseeds rusty voice was distorted with horrified outrage and Mako wanted to feel pity for him, but he just had to laugh quietly.Hayseed warmed up quickly to most animals living on Mako's farm. With one exception.





	A Snack

**Author's Note:**

> GUYS
> 
> Hello I'm so excited to be back!  
> This is a very short piece, but only because it acts as an appetizer for the stuff I will actually finish this weeks, it's in the last throws of editing. :)  
> As always, you don't have to read the previous parts, but it's probably more fun if you do. 
> 
> Once again this has been illustrated in the most delightful way by [Shanks](http://armatages.tumblr.com/post/179067373253/armatages-icons-10-one-character-headshot), because that's what you get when you play out headcanons with your talented art friends QQ. Follow the link to find out how you can commission her lovely artworks <3
> 
> Please enjoy now!

“You don’t have to hide back there, you know,” Mako said calmly to seemingly no one. The giant farm horse next to him snorted softly as he brushed dust off her dark fur, as if responding to him. From behind a wooden crate maybe ten steps away, Mako heard a tiny, shaky squeak. 

“She tried to eat me!” Hayseeds rusty voice was distorted with horrified outrage and Mako wanted to feel pity for him, but he just had to laugh quietly. 

“She didn’t try to _eat_ you, she was just confused by your -” He gestured vaguely towards his own short ponytail. Mako didn’t know if you could call it the same on Hayseed, because who knew if that was his equivalent of real hair or simply decoration - either way, he had _not_ been happy about Isobel, the plough horse, munching away happily on the strands of straw until his shrieking and wailing had scared her off. It hadn’t helped that Mako had found the incident hilarious, and had cared more about calming down the spooked horse than the indignant scarecrow. Ever since, Hayseed avoided her like the plague. 

At some point though, Mako had to plough the fields, whether the scarecrow liked it or not to have Isobel trot into his territory. It was ridiculous, too. Sure, she was huge, so big and and sturdy it made Mako look like a regular sized human for a change, but Isobel was a gentle soul that wouldn’t harm a fly. As Mako brushed her wide back, he could feel her velvet soft, sensitive lips nibble at his back pocket. 

“Now she’s doing it to you!” Hayseed screeched, and Mako could hear him shuffling behind the crate. He shook his head, chuckling. 

“Nah, I got apple slices in there, she knows.” Very carefully the horse nibbled and pulled and shoved until she had retrieved the treats from his pockets, apple slices crunching between her teeth. Somewhere out of sight, Hayseed whimpered. Mako couldn’t help but wonder that of all animals that lived here with him, the horse was the one Hayseed didn’t get along with. To be fair, the dog was rather distrustful towards the scarecrow, keeping its distance. The pigs and chickens didn’t mind him, and the cats loved him so much it was a bit eerie. They never showed themselves much, most of them were half feral anyway and helped keep rodents at bay. They positively ignored Mako even when they slipped past him in the stables, but Hayseed - they rubbed up on him, curled up on his lap to bask in the sun and purred at every single pet. Sometimes Mako saw one or two of them just snoozing right underneath the scarecrow’s post. It almost seemed as if they had some sort of connection, and it reminded Mako of ancient myths that believed cats could effortlessly walk the line between life and death. A line which Mako believed Hayseed to be familiar with. 

How could a creature like that be afraid of a horse? All because of an honest misunderstanding. 

Once Isobel was brushed, Mako geared her up and strapped her in front of the plough. “You sure you don’t wanna come?”

“Not coming!” Hayseed squeaked again, and Mako shrugged. 

“Suit yourself, then.”

He left the scarecrow behind without so much as looking back. The day would be long and exhausting enough without Hayseed yapping in the background anyway. 

-

Of course he also didn’t stay away entirely. He was there again when Mako led Isobel back to the stables at dusk, this time peeking over the crate at least to watch the farmer dry off the tired horse, feeling just as exhausted. He wasn’t in the mood anymore to try and lure out the scarecrow from its hiding place, he wanted to eat and shower and sleep and ideally all three of these things at the same time. 

“She looks sleepy,” Hayseed observed. 

“That’s cause she is. Worked hard today,” Mako mumbled, before bending down to get a hold of her leg. Hayseed watched how Isobel lifted it obediently at the slightest touch to get the dirt scraped from underneath her hooves. Like this, she didn’t look threatening at all. She stood quietly and let Mako clean her, occasionally releasing a deep breath in a snorting exhale. It almost made the big farmer stumble backwards when she bent her head to rub her giant head against his chest, getting a few good scratches behind her ears, some pats along her muscular neck. 

Behind his crate, Hayseed squirmed unhappily. He didn’t like not being a part of something Mako did - he wanted head rubs and pats too, he wanted to help Mako with his field work and have the farmer be proud of their work at the end of the day, not just proud of that stupid horse. It wasn’t his fault Isobel took him for a treat!

When Mako unbound the horse from the paddock, Hayseed had disappeared. The farmer frowned for a moment, but who knew what the scarecrow was up to. He was probably back in the house already, seeing as the sun started to set.

But Mako didn’t find him in the house either. That was unusual, Hayseed didn’t like being out in the dark on his own - or maybe he just pretended that, so Mako would let him sleep inside, spooned up against the farmer’s wide back. The farmer called for him, but got no response. Shaking his head, he decided Hayseed would be back on his own terms, but he desperately needed a shower. 

Once he stepped out and dried himself off with slow movements due to his aching muscles, a shimmer of light in the stables caught his eye. Frowning and cursing beneath his teeth, because apparently he could still not settle down for the night, Mako threw on some pants and stomped over there. And then, despite himself, he broke out laughing at the image that unfolded before him. 

Hayseed was squatted down, back pressed against the wall across from Isobel’s stable. His whole body was hidden beneath a big, plastic rain cover - only from a sleeve he could see a stick poking out. There was an apple spiked on it, and with a shaky hand Hayseed slowly pushed it towards Isobel. The horse stretched its neck as far as it could, until it plucked the apple off with careful lips, and then devoured the whole thing in two, three bites that made the juices run down her muzzle. 

“What are you doing?” Mako laughed in disbelief, making Hayseed flinch. 

Still, the scarecrow grinned up at him excitedly from underneath the plastic hood. “I’m making friends with Isobel! This way, she can’t eat me!”

Mako rolled his eyes. “She’s not _eating you_! It was a misunderstanding, it’s not her fault you carry her food around on your head.”

But at least it was a start. The next day, Hayseed already fed her by hand and the third day the plastic cover came off. That required a few interventions from Mako’s side, because Isobel did indeed not understand why she wasn’t supposed to nibble at all that golden straw peeking out everywhere, but after a while she stopped trying. And Hayseed stopped whimpering as if he had encountered the Grim Reaper himself, that was a plus. 

So Mako did end up ploughing the fields with Hayseed yapping on and on about everything and nothing after all, but he did so while laying right across the giant horse’s back, telling her about all the things she missed on the fields during summer, about their harvest, about what he intended to name the baby chickens that were supposed to hatch any day now - he never ran out of things to talk about. 

At the end of the day, Hayseed helped unstrap her, dry and brush her, and fed her all by himself under Mako’s watchful eyes. 

“Good job,” Mako praised him when Hayseed had finished all his tasks and they left the tired horse to get some rest. Of course the scarecrow was already clinging to him again halfway to the main house, and Mako took a demonstrative sniff at the light creature in his arms. “You smell like a horse now,” he said in a mockingly teasing voice. 

Hayseed giggled. “Maybe Isobel smells of scarecrow then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you guys for reading!
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments or hang out on my [tumblr](https://piggyofoz.tumblr.com/)! (NSFW tumblr version [here](https://piggyofoz-nsfw.tumblr.com/)) - now also on [twitter](https://twitter.com/mssileas)!


End file.
